


Many Meetings Missed (for Choice is a Chancy Thing)

by Alpherae



Series: A Kettle Full of Corks [6]
Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: 5+1 Things, A little bit of fluff, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark (by my standards anyway), Disease, Execution, Ficlet, Gen, Multiple names for one character, Murder, Treachery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-20 15:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9497270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alpherae/pseuds/Alpherae
Summary: Five titles never given to Sheogorath's favourite, and one Ilunabi hasn't claimed yet.





	1. Many Meetings Missed

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not that happy with this, but maybe now I can focus on one of the other things I want to finish (which will probably take me _another_ year, but anyway).
> 
> Fair warning: all the fluff is in the first one, they kinda go downhill from there.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five lives that Ilunabi Ashamanu might have lived if fate had taken another path.

**1) Mother**

Elumabi tied the door closed behind her and shook the worst of the ash from her clothes. Maeli looked up from her spinning to smile at her, but Pilu-Ahhe merely flicked her a glance and turned her focus back to the baby in her arms. Elumabi sighed and moved to join her mother, easing the string bag of fish off her shoulder and onto a platter by the hearth before shifting to crouch beside the distaff.

“Mother, should Pilu be up yet?” she pointed out quietly. Maeli gave her a dubious look.

“And how, precisely, am I to prevent her from moving?” she replied, and paused to wind up her spindle. “I have to sleep sometime.”

Elumabi looked up at Pilu-Ahhe, watching her pace and sway on the other side of the hearth in a slowed version of the story-dance for Alandro Sul. Her steps were shorter and heavier than normal, still sore from the birthing, still confidently avoiding both hearth and clutter even as she and the babe stared at each other with bemused awe.

 

**2) Mendicant**

It wasn't as hard as she would have expected to get past the guards, even with the corprus slowing her thoughts. The halls of Dagoth Ur were scattered with ash ghouls and sleepers, but few seemed particularly observant and none of those few were hostile. Soon enough, it became obvious that the master of this place knew full well that she was here, but she tried very hard not to listen to his voice. She'd come this far of her own will; she was not about to let that change.

The shift was sudden: she passed through a door to find herself in a rocky cavern, the rough, damp floor and walls a surprise after the smooth metal of the dwemer ruin. In the centre of the room was Dagoth Ur himself, apparently alone, wearing a familiar golden mask.

“Why have you come to me so unprepared, Nerevar?” he asked, and his rich voice was soft and kind.

“I am called Ilunibi Ashamanu,” she said firmly, twisting her hands together behind her back to hide the trembling. “If I was Nerevar before, Lord Dagoth, I do not remember it.”

“Then what brings you here? The orders of the Empire? The prayers of the Tribunal?”

She untangled one hand, pulled the letter Dagoth Gares had given her out of her sash, and held it out to him. “Your invitation, Lord Dagoth,” she said. She forced herself to step closer, to bow instead of kneel. “I would serve you, my lord, if you will have me?”

 

**3) Murderer**

Arquen watched in paralysed confusion as Ilu ignored the Night Mother's praise for her deeds. The dunmeri woman looked around the cramped crypt, made all the smaller by the presence of the three dead men. She nodded sharply and began to arrange the bodies into a semblance of respect, lined up in front on the altar, still paying no attention to their Unholy Matron.

Finally she approached the corner where Arquen still lay helpless. It wasn't until Ilu tucked the cursed pendant carefully out of sight instead of removing it before dragging her out into the open that Arquen became certain that something was very wrong.

She was laid down next to the traitor under the Night Mother's wary eyes, limp hands folded neatly over her heart, and Ilu knelt beside her, drawing Arquen's own dagger from its sheath at her waist. The other woman leant forward to kiss her forehead and spoke for the first time since Lucien tracked her down a year ago.

“Mephala greets thee, dear cousin,” she whispered, smiling, and swept the blade across Arquen's throat.

 

**4) Malady**

Neht leaned heavily on her staff, cursing her aching joints as she watched Peryite coil around His statue. A skinny rat was gnawing her boot, smearing it with bloody foam, and she stifled the urge to kick it off.

“Rattles? Swamp Fever? Rock Joint?” He hissed, His scales tearing grooves into the soft limestone. “No, I think Ataxia will serve My purposes well.”

She muffled a sigh as the stone bowl on the dais began to fill with a sickly yellow fluid, pulled her foot away from the rat, and limped closer. It certainly could have been worse. It had been in the past.

“Drink deep, My servant,” the Prince told her. “And spread My blessing over Tamriel.”

“Your will, my Lord,” Neht said, as she always did. She braced herself against the dais, leaning her staff beside her, and slid both hands under the bowl to lift it to her lips.

 

**5) Martyr**

The axe muffled itself in flesh and bone and wood, and Falanu forced her eyes away from the horns visible just over the edge of the basket. If the Imperials hadn't thought twice at even the possibility of angering the Arch-Mage, she doubted that fear of the Bard's College was going to save her. The bindings about her hands were too tight and too well made to break free in the time she had left, and she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of trying to run like poor Lokir.

She cast one last look at the boy who had been so uselessly sympathetic - maybe his guilt would eat him alive - and let them push her towards the block. Her focus was already turned inward, drawing up the words that would bind her will into the very soil of Helgen, anchoring her curse beyond the reach of Arkay's priests.

Falanu barely noticed as they shoved her to her knees, lips still moving silently as her blood began to roil and burn. With luck, they would believe it a prayer of some kind and there would be no warning for the Imperials _or_ the Stormcloaks. If their damned civil war was to be the death of her then she would repay them all in kind.

As the axe came down again she let herself smile.

Skyrim would _burn_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those interested, the change points are:  
> 1\. Pilu-Ahhe isn't separated from her mother when visiting the Bitter Coast at the age of 12, mainly because her grandmother came along too.  
> 2\. Ilunibi doesn't catch Witbane on the prison boat (ship's cat = no rats), arriving in Seyda Neen with her memories intact and a grudge against the Empire.  
> 3\. The Nerevarine decides to return to Cyrodiil instead of going to Akavir.  
> 4\. Azzan (of the Anvil Fighters Guild) hides his lunch instead of leaving it out, which leads to Ilunabi getting kicked out of the Shivering Isles a few years later. No, seriously. Bird-verse, more to come when I get around to it, or even a round tuit.  
> 5\. Alduin returns a decade later than in canon. Helgen still burns.
> 
> I have a fair idea of the knock-on effects as well, but posting that's probably a bit much.


	2. For Choice is a Chancy Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The life Ilunabi will get to eventually, if she doesn't get eaten by the Void first (or possibly if she does).

**+1) Chatelaine**

Ilunabi tapped her feet rapidly as the door slowly gaped open, and darted through as soon as there was enough room to pass. She hurried along the passageway, ducked under a giant tendril that had decided to work itself deeper into the stonework of Old New Sheoth, swung around the corner and skittered past a trio of newcomers - so new she didn't even recognise them - painting the distorted walls in shades of blue and orange.

Down a flight of stairs, the keys at her hip jangling as she hit the floor, and into a nook where she forced open a shortcut that was normally only there on the second Loredas after Full Jode in Tear. The corridor was going to sulk about it for _weeks_ , but it let her race down to the entrance hall and slide in front of the main doors a bare heartbeat before the Seneschal tried to march out.

Ilunabi lifted her chin and glared the Mazken down, rapping them on the nose with a spill of paper.

“Shopping list,” she said firmly, and let go as Rayzara-Dyus snatched it from her fingers.

“I am needed elsewhere,” they snapped back.

Ilunabi smiled sweetly. “The sooner the castle can sustain itself, the sooner you won't need to come back.” She stepped aside to let the Seneschal past, and turned to rest her forehead against the cool granite for a breath.

“Lady Chatelaine? Lady Chatelaine!” A young Bosmer stumbled into the hall shouting just as her heartbeat slowed. “Lady Chatelaine! There's baliwogs loose in the upstairs fountain and they're _spawning_!” Ilunabi muttered a curse into the stone and waved the child away before kilting up her skirts and starting to run again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fits about half-way between the last two Spoons, and is basically my headcanon on What Happened Next. Short version: the Sithis-march made a lot of changes. The Isles are shattered, Sheogorath is gone, and Haskill and Dyus are... mostly gone (thus Rayzara-Dyus, and also Desha-Haskill). Without the Madgod to stabilise the realm reality is a little fragile, but things should settle down once the resident population is high enough (or sufficiently strong-willed and delusional). 
> 
> Between the ruins and the sprouts from the Roots of Madness, Old New Sheoth is looking a little like Tel Vos. Because reasons.


End file.
